This disclosure relates generally to information systems and in particular to an information system and method enabling consumer rebates and improved sales volume for retailers and manufacturers. In the present method, a group of consumers acting as a team are each offered a special program coupon for a discount on a particular product. A face value of the program coupon is discounted from the product's price when purchased by each one of the consumers in the team. An additional amount; a rebate, is awarded to each of the team consumers when they, as a team, have purchased a minimum number of the product. The amount due to each team member after the promotion period can be distributed in several ways including but not limited to: by mail, as a direct deposit to a team member's bank account, as a credit to a credit or debit card account, as a credit to a mobile/smart phone bill, or as a cash voucher generated in a store such as those generated by COINSTAR® and CATALINA MARKETING®. Social media are helping a variety of “group buying” scenarios flourish. In these services, such as offered by Groupon.com, wherein a group of people commit to an offer such as a $100 massage for $50. The participants commit to the Groupon.com offer by actually buying/pre-paying for the massage and hoping that a threshold that makes the offer valid is achieved. If the threshold is achieved each person in the group gets a certificate that entitles him or her to the offer. If not, they receive a full refund of their original payment. There are many such services, but none directed to the needs of supermarkets and/or consumer packaged goods manufacturers or to the method described herein. Few consumers would probably pre-pay for a discount on groceries (in large part because the grocery items desired by individual consumers vary widely), but consumers readily participate in coupon and rebate schemes that reduce the price of an item at the time of purchase or at a time after purchase when the purchase is confirmed. Moreover, the pre-payment method advocated by GROUPON® and similar services do not readily mesh with the flow of promotional dollars in multi-product retailers such as supermarkets where almost all discounts given to consumers are ultimately borne by manufacturers.
The system shown in the drawing figures and described in the detailed description of this application is a solution to several of the characteristic problems of the grocery and similar multi-product retail industries, e.g., THE HOME DEPOT®, BEST BUY®, CVS®, etc., and the manufacturers that supply them, and results in the benefits described herein.